freelance stories from pr guys/girls...

so yeah, what are your thoughts on running submitted stories from media relations practitioners that have a stake in what the story is about? is this happening more and more in the layoff/buyout era?

obviously, i understand the conflict of interest and the ethical concerns. but let's say theoretically, that a sports staff is so short-handed and there is such a dearth of any quality stringers, the newspaper runs a story previewing a yearly golf tournament in town (featuring pga players) that is written by the tournament's pr dude.

in any situation, is that ok? to throw your ordinary standards out the window — even if you add a one-time-only asterisk — just because the staff is too small to cover something that needs to be covered?
to me, it opens the door to all kinds of nonsense. the swimming coach writing his own stories on the conference meet. the little league dad getting bylines for game reports on the district tournament. interesting stuff our small staff can't cover is covered by biased sources.

you'd never see this kind of stuff in news: a lawyer writing his defendant's court story.

or will you?

is that where we're headed? that's kind of a silly, slippery slope argument. but i guess the bottom line question is this...

when push comes to shove, should we run a seemingly objective story from a pr guy or not run anything at all?

because, theoretically, let's say it's a feature on a former champ and his battle with cancer. there are quotes. its already written. no one has time to redo his interviews and write the same story.

i'm not talking about the ethics of rewriting a press release. that's not what this is. not what i mean at all. sorry if the original post was confusing.

this is the newspaper, compensating for short-staffing by contracting stories from biased sources. i just wonder if it's becoming ok to sacrifice some ethics in tough times and how that idea might sit with people.

because, theoretically, let's say it's a feature on a former champ and his battle with cancer. there are quotes. its already written. no one has time to redo his interviews and write the same story.

i'm not talking about the ethics of rewriting a press release. that's not what this is. not what i mean at all. sorry if the original post was confusing.

this is the newspaper, compensating for short-staffing by contracting stories from biased sources. i just wonder if it's becoming ok to sacrifice some ethics in tough times and how that idea might sit with people.

If the subject matter is a worthwhile story, and the story reads fine, seems objective, and the paper really doesn't have the time/resources to put one of its people on the story, then yes, I would run it.